China’s ‘Gaokao’ College Entrance Exam Delayed One Month

China’s annual college entrance exam, known as the gaokao, has been delayed one month, according to an announcement by China’s Ministry of Education on Tuesday.

The test period will start on July 7 at 9am and finish the next day at 5pm. In previous years, the gaokao generally took place around the first week of June. In February, the ministry said it would determine whether the national college entrance exam would be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Party Central Committee and State Council agreed on pushing back the nationwide test date, while allowing Hubei province and Beijing to propose exam dates for their regions and publish their schedule pending approval from the ministry.

This year, more than 10.7 million high-school students will sit the gaokao, according to China Daily.

It’s arguably a much better time to be entering college than leaving it given the current public health crisis. This year, 8.74 million college students are expected to graduate, an increase of 400,000 year-on-year, Xinhua reports. The employment situation is expected to be “complicated and severe” during the first half of the year, according to Wang Hui, an official from the Ministry of Education. Wang expressed that the ministry will establish an online job market and promote online interviews, among other measures.

China’s unemployment rate rose to 6.2% in February, indicating that around 5 million workers lost their jobs during the first two months of 2020. The figures provided by the National Bureau of Statistics only focus on the PRC’s urban regions.